royal opera house nutcracker tour

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The Nutcracker, op. 71 Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky , Royal Opera House

The Nutcracker, op. 71 by Tchaikovsky, P. I., Mon 01 Jan 2024, From (2023/2024), Conductor Andrew Litton, Charlotte Politi, Royal Opera House, London, United Kingdom

Performance credits (cast & crew ).

Royal Opera House

( 2023 Dec 06, 07, 09, 12, 14, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 27, 29; 2024 Jan 01, 03, 04, 05, 09, 10, 11, 13 )

Charlotte Politi

( 2023 Dec 27, 29; 2024 Jan 01, 03, 04, 05, 09, 10, 11, 13 )

Choreographer

Peter Wright

Costume designer

Julia Trevelyan Oman

Set designer

Lighting designer

Mark Henderson

Orchestra of the Royal Opera House

Programme, About & Synopsis

Further reading.

• Tchaikovsky, P. I.
• The Nutcracker, op. 71

Performance Dates & Venues

London , United Kingdom

Culture | Dance

Royal Ballet’s The Nutcracker at the Royal Opera House review: a crisp, sweet treat that’s never cloying

The Royal Ballet doesn’t bring its Nutcracker down from the loft every year, but no production more reliably begins the festive season . The 1984 production by Sir Peter Wright – 96 and still going strong, as shown by his stick-waving curtain call – is classy and correct. Less Heston From Waitrose, more a classic slice of Mary Berry .

On opening night, Gary Avis’ heartfelt Drosselmeyer gave the show its tender core. The magician’s nephew has been turned into a nutcracker doll, so at the Stahlbaums’ Christmas party, he entrusts it to young Clara, who immediately cradles it. The nutcracker is in safe hands – and comes to life after bedtime, joining Clara to battle marauding mice and then visit the Kingdom of Sweets.

This isn’t the most overtly dramatic Nutcracker – but it’s 2022 and you can have too much drama. If we hug the venerable ballet close, perhaps it’s because, for all the sugar, it’s a work about home and family.

Tchaikovsky’s beloved sister died just before he wrote this score, and sorrow lurks beneath the sparkle: as with all family gatherings, you’re acutely conscious of children growing up, seniors looking frailer, absences at the feast. Eyes prickle at Tchaikovsky’s melodies, even if you can’t say why.

This was the 522nd Nutcracker at the Royal Opera House, but the orchestra under Barry Wordsworth made the score’s excited flurries sound adoringly fresh. Detailed turns among the solid ensemble include Kristen McNally’s smug dancing mistress, Leo Dixon’s tilting harlequin and Logan James as Clara’s brattish brother, a real little goblin.

The fantasy dances demand elegance: Mayara Magri’s plush fairy dips and swirls, while sinuous Melissa Hamilton and Lukas Bjørneboe Brændsrød give the Arabian dance a lick of sensuality.

Julia Trevelyan Oman’s sumptuous designs are showstopper bakes: the Stahlbaums’ home might be pure gingerbread, the Sugar Plum Fairy’s palace confected from marzipan and royal icing. Snowy backdrops appear generously dusted with icing sugar.

Isabella Gasparini’s Clara stands sweet amid the scenery. Awed and dreamy, she looks spooked when toys spring to life, but confronts the mice and their fighty paws: this night marks a step toward adulthood. She and James Hay’s charming Nutcracker trace excited circles round the stage, and his lips graze her knuckles as snow falls – unbearably romantic.

Crowning the ballet’s climax, the Sugar Plum and her prince are killer roles: offstage for almost two hours, then having to deliver dressage levels of classical technique. Yasmine Naghdi and a sprightly Matthew Ball set the bar high, their every turn crisp as a sugared almond. Naghdi’s arms trail with gentle precision, while her ankles seem both tough as titanium and flexible as the softest chamois. You can only surrender to the festive magic.

Royal Opera House, to January 14; roh.org.uk

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The Nutcracker review – English National Ballet and the Royal Ballet’s annual festive face-off

Coliseum; Royal Opera House, London The two companies variously capture the Christmas classic’s glittering pleasures – and its narrative strangeness

The Nutcracker is ballet’s pantomime. Villains, heroines and magic. An audience full of festive cheer. Lots of little girls and boys in their party best on a family treat, grandmas and grandads in tow. A mood of high anticipation and enjoyment. Some of Tchaikovsky’s most beautiful and hummable tunes rising from the orchestra.

For the ballet companies, it’s a seasonal banker – a chance to ensure money in the coffers during increasingly hard times. It’s also an opportunity to involve young people on stage. School pupils take on the roles of naughty children at the opening party, as well as the battling rats/mice and toy soldiers who fill the scene as the action shifts from reality to fantasy.

Whether it’s actually the gateway ballet that people believe, I always doubt. My own first ballet was a triple bill of Les Sylphides , The Rake’s Progress and Pineapple Poll , one romantic, one dramatic, one comic: a full range of emotion communicated through dance. I wonder whether I’d have loved dance at all if I’d started with the unconvincing plot and embroidered variations of The Nutcracker .

Certainly, Wayne Eagling’s 2010 production for English National Ballet tries my patience. Peter Farmer’s designs are picturesque but cast in gloom by David Richardson’s crepuscular lighting, and Eagling’s solution to the assorted difficulties of the narrative is to turn the entire thing into Clara’s dream, and let the evil Mouse King pursue her from her home to the Kingdom of Sweets.

This runs counter to the story of the music – a mystical transformation from the first act to the second symbolised by the glorious growing Christmas tree – and also creates some true weirdness. Clara runs offstage as a little girl and emerges as an adult; the Nutcracker Prince keeps changing back and forth from handsome prince to ugly doll and is actually two people. Or maybe I missed something.

On the plus side, there’s skating, a hot-air balloon, a DayGlo tree and wonderful, committed dancing from the entire company, who invest the national dances of the second act with pace and feeling, and the whirling snowflakes with icy precision. In the performance I saw, James Streeter’s Drosselmeyer held everything together with bothered-uncle gentleness, while Erina Takahashi was warm and lyrical as Clara. The woman behind me sang along as the dancer went through her variations.

Over at the Royal Ballet , things are a lot rosier thanks to designer Julia Trevelyan Oman , who creates for the first act a perfect Victorian drawing room and turns the fantastical kingdom of the second into a glistening palace of cream, pink and gold. Peter Wright’s 1984 production, performed for the 559th time on the night I went, is durable, traditional and full of glitter (often from the pockets of Gary Avis’s Drosselmeyer).

Clara here is an onlooker to all the enchantment, watching in wide-eyed wonder as a new world opens up around her. Sae Maeda imbues her with an airy poetry, a child on the verge of adulthood, her movement wonderfully free. Francesca Hayward was a radiant Sugar Plum Fairy, though her technique looked less secure than it sometimes does. Alexander Campbell an attentive prince. As at the Coliseum, company and orchestra work their hearts out to give everyone a lovely time.

Star ratings (out of five) Nutcracker (English National Ballet) ★★★ The Nutcracker (Royal Ballet) ★★★★

Nutcracker is at the Coliseum, London, until 7 January 2024

The Nutcracker is at the Royal Opera House, London, until 13 January 2024

• The Observer
• English National Ballet
• Royal Ballet
• Christmas shows

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International Edition

Review: THE NUTCRACKER, Royal Opera House

Marianela Nunez, Vadim Muntagirov, Anna-Rose O'Sullivan, James Hay, Claire Calvert, Gary Avis, Nutcracker review, Royal Ballet, Sir Peter Wright, Will Tuckett

Sir Peter Wright 's beloved production has, of course, has the COVID treatment; choreography is amended to keep distance, some of the divertissements are cut, and the party scene has been pruned of additional children but the exhilarating moments are still very much intact. With the dancers of the company, eager to thrill a live audience for the first time since March (bar one-off galas), it makes for a deeply special occasion.

Indeed staging at Nutcracker in 2020 poses endless challenges, and all at the Royal Opera House should be applauded for getting it to the stage. Anyone putting on a show in the midst of a pandemic gets 5 stars from me, but let that not take away from the quality (in every sense) of this reworked classic.

The warmth of the party scene at the Stahlbaum's is still present thanks to cast members carefully bubbling so they can share a greeting and gift or two. Two energetic pairs of young dancers accompany Clara and her partner instead of the usual hoards, but it brings fresh clarity and allows us to enjoy all the individual details of everyone's performance.

Anna-Rose O'Sullivan reprises the role of Clara and will debut as the Sugar Plum Fairy later in the run. As much as we wait for that with great anticipation, her youthful looks, light, buoyant dancing with beautiful lines suit Clara so well, it'll be a shame when she graduates to the prime spot in the cast.

James Hay is a wonderful match for her, both in stature and style. His lines are neat and accurate, and he negotiates their partnership with charisma as well as demonstrating effortless partnering in the numerous catches and lifts.

Together they are radiant in the Act I pas de deux and they hit glorious heights amongst that heady swell of notes in Tchaikovsky's score. It is the first time goosebumps come and there are many more to follow. The glittering Snowflakes soon appear and fill the stage - sixteen instead of the usual twenty-four - as resplendent and well-drilled as ever.

Unable to utilise as many children as normal, there's a fresh battle scene to compensate, choreographed by Will Tuckett . In a production familiar to many, it was exciting to witness a new component comprising of soldiers and army mice, led by a rather imposing Mouse King. The visual isn't dissimilar from that seen in English National Ballet's version. It's a pacy, well-conceived addition.

All that and it's only Act One. Hard to believe the A-listers haven't even arrived yet. What hasn't already been said about Marianela Nunez and Vadim Muntagirov? Bringing their unique artistry to the Sugar Plum Fairy and the Prince, roles they have danced countless times.

Nunez provides the occasion with grandeur and sincerity, every turn of the head, placement of the arms is deliberate and considered. While Muntagirov delights with his serene partnering and wows us with his neat and sharp feet in his solo.

The audience reacts accordingly, and very vocally, I feel like my heart is about to burst out of my chest, to be quite honest.

A word too for Claire Calvert's distinctive and delightful Rose Fairy. The choreography is challenging for this part, and Calvert always delivers it with confidence and admirable core strength seeing her through the balances and arabesques. She displays great musicality too and is every inch the centrepiece to the "Waltz of the Flowers".

The whole production feels framed by Gary Avis' Herr Drosselmeyer, adeptly leading us through the story from beginning to end. It's a role he is renowned for and one he has refined with countless wonderful details even when he isn't the main focus on stage. He's silently there, keeping an eye on it all, ensuring we're under the spell.

The final embrace shared by him and his Nephew (the Nutcracker) takes on new significance amongst a pandemic that has seen us denied physical contact. If you don't already have a tear in your eye, you will now.

The Nutcracker at the Royal Opera House until 3 January

You can watch a live stream of the performance on 22 December for £16

Photo credit: Alastair Muir

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Royal Opera House Christmas 2023: Ukrainian Chorus, The Nutcracker, Accessible Performances, Award-Winning Opera, and Festive Tours

Posted by 5thingstodotoday on 02/11/2023 in 5 Things To Do Today | Leave a comment

• Special Performances : The Royal Opera House will host a range of special performances during the Christmas season, including traditional Ukrainian Christmas songs by the Songs for Ukraine Chorus and classic performances of The Nutcracker by The Royal Ballet.
• Accessible Shows : For the first time, there will be an accessible performance of The Nutcracker, designed to be more welcoming for neurodiverse individuals and others with specific access needs.
• Award-winning Productions : The return of the Olivier Award-winning folk opera, Wolf Witch Giant Fairy, in the Linbury Theatre, indicates the ROH’s commitment to innovative and family-friendly programming.
• Festive Tours and Events : The ROH offers behind-the-scenes tours focused on The Nutcracker, including a 75-minute tour for those over 12 and a special children’s tour for a younger audience to explore the magic of this Christmas story.
• Dining and Shopping Experience : The Royal Opera House will have extended café hours, a Christmas set-menu for groups, and a variety of festive treats. The ROH Shop offers unique and sustainable Christmas gifts, emphasizing a sparkling festive season.

Remember, you can explore more by visiting the Royal Opera House’s website or shop online for Christmas gifts related to the season’s performances.

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